<h1>Management of domestic employees: from eSocial registration to regularization</h1>
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<h4>Maintaining or regularizing the situation of domestic employees is not an easy job. Employers should be aware to the reporting of this employment relationship in “eSocial Domestico”.</h4>
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<p>Launched in 2015, the <b>eSocial Domestico</b> was presented by the government as an online and simplified solution in accordance with the <a href=”http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/lcp/lcp150.htm” target=”_blank”>Supplementary Law 150/2015</a>. The tool represents a step towards to contributing to the equalization of the rights of the domestic worker with other workers.</p>

<p>Some changes that the Complementary Law 150/2015 established were: the experience agreement, the prohibitions of discount from the employee’s salary and the taxation of special form, where the most relevant is the definition of domestic employee concept, thus considered the one who provides services in a continuous, subordinate, onerous and personal and non-profit-making way to the person or family, in their residential context, for more than two days a week.</p>

<p>Initially, eSocial Doméstico was criticized for its complexity and technical flaws. After many adjustments and layouts updating, currently, the platform is more efficient. Therefore, the expected simplification should be effectively deployed soon as part of the eSocial modernization process the government proposed.</p>
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<h2>Information management and issuance of payment slips</h2>
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<p>In order to legally maintain employees, it is not enough to make notes on CTPS, as done in the past. Nowadays, the <b>organization</b>, <b>control</b> and <b>transparency</b> are important so that the labor relationship complies with the current legislation.
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<p>The employer must register the employees at eSocial only once, while the payroll should be monthly processed. Changes, such as leave and vacation, for example, should be included in the system, according to the need and occurrence.</p>

<p>In practice, through the system, the employer must manage the information of its domestic employees, as well as generate the payment slip at the end of each month.</p>

<p>The <b>eSocial Payment Form (Documento de Arrecadação do eSocial – “DAE”)</b> should be generated and issued through the eSocial Doméstico in order to pay the obligations.</p>

<p>It is noteworthy that this document appears linked to the employers’ CPF, covering the relationship of all domestic employees they maintains. In other words, only one DAE will be generated per employer, which will include the employers’ social contributions and the discounted from employees, the FGTS, the financing of an insurance against accidents at work, the compensatory indemnification of the employment loss and the income tax withholding.</p>

<p><b>The DAE is payable by the 7th day of the month following the month in which the taxable event occur</b>. If this is not a business day, the payment must be made in advance for the immediately preceding business day.
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<p>The amounts not paid by the due date are corrected and are levied of penalty.
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<p>From the eSocial registration, among other actions, it is possible to:</p>
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<li>include overtime value;</li>
<li>report absences or leaves;</li>
<li>report the 13th salary;</li>
<li>issuance the holiday receipt;</li>
<li>report dependents, in case of family-salary;</li>
<li>report an accident at work;</li>
<li>report notice;</li>
<li>termination of employment relationship.</li>
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<h2>Highlights of domestic eSocial</h2>
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<li>A recurring failure is not to enter into an <b>employment agreement</b>. This document governing the employer-employee relationship is important to establish the guidelines agreed upon between the parties.</li>

<li>It is also important that the employer adopt a <b>time clock control</b> system to ensure compliance with the established workday, daily and weekly, then calculating the overtime or discounts, additional for nightshift, among others.</li>

<li>With the Domestic eSocial, the employee’s <b>FGTS</b> payment becomes compulsory, which was previously optional.</li>

<li>The system allows the input of amounts and does not make the employer’s job easier by making calculations. Thus, fields, such as holidays and nightshift additional, for example, must be calculated<b> in parallel to the system and manually posted</b>.</li>

<li>It is necessary to dedicate to the correct filling of the system fields so as not to fall in the fine mesh. This is because the RFB already adopts the <b>crosschecking of reported information</b> of the individual with the eSocial database.</li>

<li>Domestic Employers who have withheld the Income Tax (IRRF) on their employees’ remuneration (calculated automatically by the eSocial and with the DAE – single payment slip) are required to file the <b>DIRF – Withholding Income Tax Return</b>, whose deadline is the last business day of February.</li>

<li><b>Foreign domestic employers</b> that do not report the income tax, nor are enrolled for voter’s certificate are required to an eSocial attendance. In this case, one should access the portal by means of a digital certificate, in the ICP-Brazil standard.</li>

<li>In disagreement with the law and/or in breach of what is required by eSocial, the employer is subject to <b>fines</b> and to respond to <b>labor lawsuits</b>.</li>
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<h2>How to regularize the situation of a domestic employee?</h2>
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<p>When hiring a domestic employee, it is necessary to establish a work agreement, fill out the CTPS, meet all of the eSocial registration steps, and, from there, the DAE monthly payment.</p>

<p>What happens when the employee has been working for years, but the employer is still not up to date with providing information to eSocial? In this case, it is important to regularize as soon as possible to avoid labor and social security exposure.</p>

<p>The eSocial Domestico must be fed with information from its effective date, which occurred in October 2015. Once the retroactive information of an employment relationship is input, the DAE will be generated with the penalty corresponding to the months of omission.
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<p>For periods prior to the entry into force of eSocial, a Social Security Form (GPS) is generated, also with the calculation of the penalty and interest, to pay the obligations.</p>
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<h2>Upcoming changes </h2>
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<p>The <a href=”http://portal.esocial.gov.br/noticias/novo-esocial-o-que-muda” target=”_blank”>eSocial modernization process</a>, recently announced by the government, will also affect how the information is presented to the eSocial Domestico. There was indication of the deployment of changes in order to facilitate the life of the domestic employer, through the reformulation of screens, simplification of flows, among other improvements.</p>

<p><b>The domestic employer must continue providing its employees’ information, in addition to closing payrolls and generating payment slips (DAE).</b></p>
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<h2>Specialized counseling disagrees with the obligation</h2>
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<p>The eSocial filling routine can be complex for anyone who needs to handle documents and calculate the employee salaries. In these cases, it is worth evaluating the hiring of a specialized advice for managing and monthly transmission of information.</p>

<p><b>Domingues e Pinho Contadores</b> has a specialized team ready to meet the requirements of individuals in relation to their tax obligations, in occasional and periodic consultancies also as employers in eSocial, as well as for DIRPF – Individual’s Income Tax Return and DIRF – Income Tax Withheld at Source.</p>

<p>Rely on DPC to regularize all monthly receipts of domestic employees (salary, 13th salary, vacation, etc.), the issuance of the payment slips for labor charges, or even for entries and corrections of information at eSocial.</p>